Man Booker 2009

Excerpts from an article in FT by Peter Aspden

Hilary Mantel is the winner of this year’s Man Booker prize for fiction for Wolf Hall, her historical novel about the politics of Tudor England.

Wolf Hall, her 11th novel, is set in the Tudor court of the 1520s. It focuses on the role of Thomas Cromwell during the years that Henry VIII was married to Catherine of Aragon.

Reviewing the book in the Financial Times, novelist Julie Myerson described it as “fantastically well-wrought, detailed and convincing”.

“Despite being a complex examination of the all-too-familiar shenanigans of power, of favour and of treachery in the Tudor court, still the rhythms at its wrist-aching, 650-page heart are universal: men, women and children, birth and death.”

This year’s shortlist was widely regarded as one of the most readable, a fact that has been reflected in book sales. Wolf Hall has already sold nearly 50,000 copies and can expect a massive boost after winning the £50,000 prize.

Last year’s winner, Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger, has sold more than 500,000 copies and rights have been sold to 39 countries.